Spingsteen album a canary in the coal mine?

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cjboog

cjboog

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News has just come out from Billboard that Bruce Springsteen's new album, Working On A Dream, has debuted at #1 in the US with sales of 224,000 copies.

Springsteen Has 'Dream' Debut Atop Album Chart

His last album, Magic, debuted with 335,000 copies in its first week of US release. I find it somewhat alarming that despite all of the media coverage from the Superbowl performance and the Obama inauguration concert, Dream still didn't even come close to the first week sales of ifs predecessor.

Do you think this could be a sign of things to come for NLOTH? Perhaps it will not be able to match Bomb's sales no matter how good it is... :|
 
This is the state of rock and albums in the good ol' US of A. People don't listen to albums anymore, they listen to singles. And musical taste has become so segmented. I think its reality that NLOTH won't match HTDAAB given the reaction of the first single. Theres a chance they could make it up with the second single, just as Coldplay did with Viva La Vida, but they had a huge assist from the iTunes ad.

I think part of the problem is theres so many things to do and so much music to listen to now. Back in the day you were stuck with listening to your casette tapes or listening to the radio. Now you can watch/listen to whatever you want whenever you want with ease.

Well I guess its not really a problem but its reality.
 
AC-DC sold over 750K first week. so it can still be done for rock albums. Just need some good promo, and ACDC did get that
 
fna692002 said:
AC-DC sold over 750K first week. so it can still be done for rock albums. Just need some good promo, and ACDC did get that
Click to expand...

That was a Wal-Mart exclusive album if I remember right. Seems like this is one of the very few real huge sales successes of the last couple years in rock music.

While Viva la Vida has been very big, it has sold somewhere around 2.3 million copies in the US I believe. For an album that had a #1 hit single that's still hanging around in the top 30 I am actually surprised this didn't do better.
 
Expected opening sales

Magic was released in Q4 - thats when ALL the marketing dollars are spent in the music industry. It was also the first "proper" studio album since the Rising . Devils and Dust was a folk aside (think Ghost of Tom Joad ) and We Shall Overcome is a collection of bits and pieces recorded since 1997.

So there are lots of reasons to think that Magic would have debuted stronger than Working on a Dream.

Additionally - lots of people werent that impressed with the songs played at Superbowl. The reviews of the CD have been good but not superlative. I see it selling 1-1.5 million before the end of the year. I dont see it as a long term play. Bruce doesnt seem to work/promote his albums for superlong periods of time any more.

I expect a 2 year promotional period for NLOTH overall. However I do think its REALLY unlikely to open with 850,000+ copies. A lot of the opening size for HTDAAB was because it was Thanksgiving weekend and Best Buy priced it unbelievely cheaply.

Looking at this weeks radio numbers I see that GOYB is getting SLIGHTLY more airplay than last week. Not much though so there needs to be something additional and special to get a big play increase (like opening the Grammies maybe? lol:) )


My guess is 450,000 opening tops.
 
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Here are some opening weeks of U2's previous albums.

U2 18 - 135,000
HTDAAB - 840,000
BEST OF 90-00 - 185,000
ATYCLB - 428,000
BEST OF 80-90 - 237,000
POP - 349,000
ZOOROPA - 377,000
ACHTUNG BABY - 295,000

Okay, so the compilation albums didn't start off too high, that's to be expected. But I really can't see this album debuting with any less than 500,000.
 
Can you be specific, is that worldwide or US?

And holy crap, HTDAAB was absolutely massive. But due to the way radio/mtv is these days, theres not as long of a tail on albums so they really have to nail it commercially in the first week or two.
 
Those were US figures. It's harder to come across sales figures for other countries. In the UK HTDAAB opened with 201,000 I think, compared to 164,000 for ATYCLB and 152,000 for POP. So it was mainly the USA that HTDAAB had the massive first week sales in comparison to previous albums.
 
niallyb said:
Magic was released in Q4 - thats when ALL the marketing dollars are spent in the music industry.

So there are lots of reasons to think that Magic would have debuted stronger than Working on a Dream.

Additionally - lots of people werent that impressed with the songs played at Superbowl.
Click to expand...

On your first point -- Magic was released on October 2nd, which doesn't seem like any particularly special week of the year for the album to do better, I can understand if it was closer to Christmas, but it was almost 3 months away from Christmas and it still debuted with 335,000.

I still think that with all the attention given to Bruce for the inauguration concert and the suprebowl, there are more reasons to think that it should have done better on opening weekend then Magic, although I can see where you are coming from with the "first full band album in a while" thing.

I think the reaction to the songs played at the superbowl was actually overwhelmingly positive. I am a big Bruce fan so I read a lot of online reaction and found that it was actually pretty darn good.

Was Bruce Springsteen's the best Super Bowl halftime party?

Bruce Springsteen's Halftime Show: Love It or Leave It? | Buzz Poll, Bruce Springsteen, 2009 Super Bowl | BuzzSugar - Movies, TV & Music

Regardless of how good the performance was though, the visibility of Working On A Dream was raised in the public eye simply because he was playing.

So I still am surprised it only hit 224k, although I agree with you about NLOTH opening weekend unless the single starts to pick up in a big way. I think if the video is a hit on MTV or VH1, with the grammy performance that is still a remote possibility.
 
Oct 2 isnt a special retail week or anything - I totally agree with that. But historically the no. 1 album in Jan/Feb timelines are always much lower selling than anything from about Sept on. I'll try to dig up some numbers for you but buying habits have historically been that way.

Lots of other well publicized sites didnt like the performance

So is Wikipedia cracking up? - Features, Gadgets & Tech - The Independent

Bruce Springsteen at the Super Bowl: Were you sold? | Pop & Hiss | Los Angeles Times

The Chicago Tribune wasnt impressed either.

So it appears that reaction to his performance was mixed and potentially not maximized as a promotional opportunity. Also more to the point - most of the sales week was already over. If theres a lift you'll see it with the holdover numbers this week.....
 
niallyb said:
Oct 2 isnt a special retail week or anything - I totally agree with that. But historically the no. 1 album in Jan/Feb timelines are always much lower selling than anything from about Sept on. I'll try to dig up some numbers for you but buying habits have historically been that way.

Lots of other well publicized sites didnt like the performance

So is Wikipedia cracking up? - Features, Gadgets & Tech - The Independent

Bruce Springsteen at the Super Bowl: Were you sold? | Pop & Hiss | Los Angeles Times

The Chicago Tribune wasnt impressed either.

So it appears that reaction to his performance was mixed and potentially not maximized as a promotional opportunity. Also more to the point - most of the sales week was already over. If theres a lift you'll see it with the holdover numbers this week.....
Click to expand...

The links I provided were of polls. Who cares what some opinion writer thinks? I read hundreds of comments from PEOPLE online at various websites (Interference, Rolling Stone, MSN Music, Daily Kos to name a few) and it was probably 75% positive. Just because a couple newspapers have some criticism doesn't mean that was the consensus. I could give you 10 articles or opinion pieces just like you posted raving about the performance.

Even PITCHFORK, which give his new album like a 5.6/10 liked the halftime performance...
 
Well the sales week preceeded the Super Bowl, and I haven't seen or heard a lot of promo for this release (Magic was everywhere in comparison, and Radio Nowhere did pretty well on the radio) so perhaps its less frontloaded than most, and the halftime show will help it this week.
 
Nobody seems to mentioning the amount of time between the release of albums. Working On A Dream was released just a year after Magic, so there wasn't much demand for the album outside of die-hard fans. Same with Black Ice, it was AC/DC's first album in eight years. Casual fans usually pick up the album when there is much media hype surrounding which is usually fueled when the album is billed as "first album in such-and-such time" and people get excited.

In this day and age, Springsteen, after all these years, being able to have two #1 albums a year apart is still very impressive. I believe NLOTH has the ability to surpass the 500,000 mark, but I guess we will just have to wait and see.
 
vaz02 said:
It wont match Bomb sales
Click to expand...

While I also don't feel NLOTH will see sales of 840K in the U.S. in its first week, don't write off the album yet.

The illegal downloading peak - prior to the boom of iTunes and other download sites (like WalMart) - was during the 1999-2001 time frame. And in the midst of all that, ATYCLB still managed to sell 4.2M copies in the U.S. Yet, its first week sales were almost half of HTDAAB.

AB, which came out when there were no downloads, sold under 300K copies its first week! Here's brand new U2, during their prime, and yet the album limps in at #1. Yet, thanks to MW and "One", AB became a Top 10 fixture on the U.S. charts and has now been certified as 8X Platinum!

Given our world (illegal downloads, iTunes, decreased radio play, lack of video play, etc.), U2 (and basically all other artists) won't see those glory days any more. But they could still do quite well. If NLOTH has a couple of big hit songs following GOYB, that radio actually plays (gasp!), it could be a very popular album for a while and still see strong sales, perhaps matching those of HTDAAB.

If not, so be it. If NLOTH reaches 2X Platinum in today's world, I'll be thrilled. Higher is great, but when the #1 album of the year has to fight to reach sales of 3M in the U.S. that says a lot.
 
doctorwho said:
The illegal downloading peak - prior to the boom of iTunes and other download sites (like WalMart) - was during the 1999-2001 time frame.
Click to expand...

I disagree with you there. Illegal download peak is now. In that time frame, the majority of people didn't even have internet access. I remember using Napster in 2000/2001 and while it was fairly common with teenagers - vast volumes of material just don't transfer quickly on the 56k connects still common at the time.

Copied CDs were much more common as I remember.
 
thelaj said:
I disagree with you there. Illegal download peak is now. In that time frame, the majority of people didn't even have internet access. I remember using Napster in 2000/2001 and while it was fairly common with teenagers - vast volumes of material just don't transfer quickly on the 56k connects still common at the time.

Copied CDs were much more common as I remember.
Click to expand...

Maybe in your world.

In my world, copied CD's (boots and others) peaked in the '97-98 era. Slowly people started making mp3's and this shifted the music world dramatically.

I disagree that people didn't have the 'net back then. Maybe in other parts of the world that was true. But by 2000 I would say most people had at least dial-up service, if not DSL (I had DSL by then and soon switched to cable).

And, keep in mind, one reason mp3's were created was because they were small. Downloading a song that could only be 1 to 3 MB in size, even on a 56K connection, was fairly painless. As soon as one got DSL, it went even faster. I recall almost never using Napster in 2000/2001- by then, Napster was already facing legal challenges. Other sites popped up, like KaZaA (and countless others).

The RIAA really clamped down in 2002 or so. I know a person who was sued for downloading ONE song for his wedding (per his wife's request). He couldn't find the song, so he downloaded it - and he was sued thousands for it. Ridiculous! It wasn't even a popular song - those thousands are about $4999 more than the artist would have made! But these types of actions did deter some people.

Then along came iTunes and WalMart and other legal download sites. And suddenly people had a choice. The reason why I say the peak was around 2000/2001 was because there was no iTunes or other download sites. Still, even in 2004 and 2005, illegal downloads were high, yet HTDAAB still sold over 3.1M copies in the U.S.

So while there is still tons of illegal activity now, when Clarkson's now song has almost 500,000 downloads in two weeks, it indicates to me that this is not the "peak" of the illegal download era. People are willing to pay for songs. If not, iTunes wouldn't exist.

I say this from a U.S. perspective. This could be VASTLY different in Asia and other parts of the world.

But, perhaps you are right. Maybe even with iTunes, the illegal activity peak is now. And if true, it may really dent U2's sales. Probably why more bands rely on touring more than album sales.
 
I think there's two things happening right now, one illegal downloads are high, really high but also the current teenage generation are shifting from albums to only buying single songs. Which means album sales are down for two reasons but single sales are seeing a resurgence
 
Irishteen said:
I think there's two things happening right now, one illegal downloads are high, really high but also the current teenage generation are shifting from albums to only buying single songs. Which means album sales are down for two reasons but single sales are seeing a resurgence
Click to expand...

Yes, you're right... in these days most teenagers download only a song a two from each artist and are satisfied with that. But I believe you're wrong with the sales commentary. Most of those teenagers won't even buy the single. I can't remember a friend of mine that downloads music legally. Hell, I don't download music legally. I buy physical albums, but only from a few bands. You can't expect that a band that it's not that popular with the new generation (yeah, I know that for sure) to have their new single selling like water (Yes, Vertigo IS an exception). As you can see, one of the most popular rock band at these times in the U.S. is The Fray. They're young and they make the right kind of music to sell. But as you can see, they're at #13 in the Top 100. Rock doesn't sell that much anymore, you can't expect U2 to sell loads. Not a problem to me, Top 10 in sales or not, Boots is in my U2 top 10. :heart:
 
FYI Working On A Dream Dropped to #2 this week in the US with sales of only 102,000.

That's shockingly bad IMO considering he played for 100 million people at the Superbowl. A 55% decline in sales when we should have seen the effect of the halftime show this week. I honestly expected it to sell close to what it did in the first week (roughly 200k) until I started to notice the slow sink begin on Amazon and iTunes.

I just don't think it bodes well for U2 that you've got an older artist with a big fanbase who doesn't really have a hit single driving the album and plays the Superbowl is only able to get to 330,000 copies in two weeks.

I think the economy is really killing album sales.

That being said, a lot of it is going to be I think influenced by the album reviews. Casual U2 fans might buy this album if they are convinced it is good investment considering the other things they could be spending their money on.

Despite the 5 star review from Rolling Stone and the A from Entertainment weekly, Working On A Dream has gotten fairly middling reviews compared to his last two E Street albums so I suspect that might have something to do with it as well.

Who knows :|
 
Bad time for sales or not, it's been years since U2's last album and their name alone will bring in at least 500,000 copies first week, more if they can kick the promo in gear soon (Coldplay got more than 600,000 last June and U2 is still more popular).
 
powerhour24 said:
Bad time for sales or not, it's been years since U2's last album and their name alone will bring in at least 500,000 copies first week, more if they can kick the promo in gear soon (Coldplay got more than 600,000 last June and U2 is still more popular).
Click to expand...

True but Coldplay also had a #1 hit single with Viva la Vida. Boots, despite the video release and the opening of the grammys is getting decent (not great) airplay but hasn't even come close to re-entering the top 100 on iTunes since the first couple days of its release. Right now it's selling just under Ozzy's "Crazy Train" and Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" on the rock chart!! :doh: Also, the economy wasn't as bad as it is now when Viva was released.

I love the song but jeez it's just getting ZERO traction. The music video has been released on You Tube for several days now and has about 130,000 views. Kelly Clarkson's video has been released for a week and it's already at 2,400,000 views on Youtube. Not to say that they are comparable, but it illustrates the point that GOYB has not been a song that will drive album sales in the US like Vertigo and Viva La Vida did.

So I highly doubt that NLOTH will top 600k in it's first week of release, but we'll have to see. I'm sticking with 450k as a guess. If the reviews are stellar, maybe 500k and strong legs. If they start to kick the promotion up a notch, then maybe they can top Viva.

I agree though with Doctor Who that unless we've got a masterpiece on our hands or unless one of the singles is a top 5 hit in the US, I think we are probably looking at a 2x Platinum album with the current sales environment. That's a good bar to set. We shall see...
 
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